Albert's List

Monday, May 3, 2010

I set up this blog to serve as a repository for discussion and ideas regarding Albert's List.

What is Albert's List, you ask? Well, I'll tell you.

Albert's List is an idea brought to me by Congressman Bill Foster (D-IL), one of only 3 physicists working in Congress right now. Now, this idea wasn't actually Bill's either, but he heard of it from a friend and passed it along. The idea is this:

Create a PAC (Political Action Committee) that serves to raise money and support candidates for public office that are classically trained scientists and engineers, with the ultimate goal of transforming politics into a meritocracy of ideas, where decisions are made based on facts, rather than strictly ideology.

Albert's List would be modeled off of Emily's List, the PAC devoted to electing Pro-Choice, Democratic Women to public office. However, Albert's List would instead be working to get any scientist or engineer into public office, regardless of party. Emily's List gets its name from the acronym E.M.I.L.Y. - Early Money Is Like Yeast (it makes the dough rise). The idea being that giving candidates a cash-infusion early on in their campaign gives them the ability to raise even more money, and (unfortunately) money is what runs political campaigns.

I created this blog to start a discussion with anyone who cares about the idea behind Albert's List and to hear ideas from others about how it should / would work. I'm looking to start this PAC after this year's elections, and Mr. Foster has already told me that he would be more than happy to provide contacts of his that would be able to help raise capital to get it started.

The big questions I have right now are these:

1. How do you create an objective test to determine if a candidate should be supported by Albert's List? There should be little to no question in determining which candidates are eligible to being supported. Things to consider: Do Theology Ph.D.'s count? What about Psychologists? What about people without "classical" training, but who are clearly fact-based individuals? These are questions that I don't know the answer to, but these answers are imperative if Albert's List is to become a reality.

2. Is there enough demand for this type of PAC in the country for it to be sustainable and useful? People seem to be sick of "politics as usual," but is this the solution they are looking for?

In future posts I'll be posting insights of my own about this idea, opinions of others that I have talked to, and at some point (hopefully) developmental steps as this idea begins to become a reality.